Anisa Cikal Ardelia

2016120001

Why Do Teachers Lose their Teachers’ Professionalism?

“Good afternoon students, today we are talking about matrix. Who is the secretary?
Okay, please take note from page 85 to 90. I have to go to my office, I have something to do. Do
not go anywhere, if the headmaster comes here, just tell her that you have task, okay?” This kind
of situations often happens in some of my teachers during my school experience. Some of them
often left the classroom without any acceptable reason; it can be having any other business in the
office teacher or just leaving the classroom without any words. During my school experience, I
always wonder why those teachers left their students without any supervision. While referring to
my perspective of the role of teacher at school, teachers have to teach and educate the students to
be even better than before and also prepare the students for their future. So, why do the teachers
lose their teachers’ professionalism?

Teachers’ Professionalism

Teacher is a profession, referring to the literal meaning of profession, it means that

someone needs special knowledge training to be mastered and needs an intensive academic
preparation to be in that profession. To be professional, people were trained in certain ways to
have a professional knowledge and skills. Thus, they also need to pass all of the tests to be in that
profession and then they can practice in a real situation.

In showing the seriousness to build a professional teacher, the government has set the
regulation for teacher in order to give standard competences to build their professionalism and
ensure the teacher’s quality. On the issuance No. 14/2005 about teachers and lecturers, the
government put four competences as the standard to represent the teachers’ professionalism.
Those four competences are pedagogical competence, personal competence, social competence,
and professional competence. All those competence support each other, as a teacher, pedagogical
competence is really needed in order to determine how the teacher will teach the students,
starting from preparing the materials, delivering it, and even understanding the students’ need in
a classroom. Besides that, as a role model for the students, teachers also need to have a good
personality such as responsible, honest, and patient. Furthermore, teachers are not only focusing
on the interaction among students in a classroom, but also have to build interaction and
connection among the other teachers, school administrator, parents, and other colleague as a form
of their social competence. This competence is important because as teachers, in a certain time
they need to communicate to parents about their children progress at school; they can
communicate to the other teacher about students’ problem in order to get a solution to overcome
it; and also they can communicate to the school administrator whether their learning process
achieve the goal or not, and even give suggestions that can be applied in the next period. Last
competence, to show their professional competence, teachers need to master the content of what
they are going to teach, become a life-long learner which means that teachers need to upgrade
their knowledge and skills continuously along with the global development.

Thus, teachers’ professionalism is not only about the way teachers think and behave in a
certain profession, but also it relates to a commitment. As stated by Tschannen-Moran, Parish, &
DiPaola (2006), teacher professionalism is related to the teachers’ commitment in their work,
collaboration with colleague, respecting and helping each other, job involvement and behaviors
related to the enhancement of instruction quality. In addition, professionalism refers to one’s
commitment to perfectionism, sitting as a role model, and taking responsibility for the quality of
education (Agezo, 2009).

Teachers Real Situation

- Unprepared Teacher

However, in a real situation, some of the teachers do not show their professionalism in
teaching the students. As observed by Bjork, along the six junior high schools in East Java, most
of the teacher in those school show remarkably attitude towards their duties:

“I rarely glimpse an educator prepare for the assigned class. Yet most of school
employess displayed great seriousness toward school rituals. Teacher who mostly missed their
classes were sure to arrive on time for weekly flag ceremony. Surprisingly, this practice was
accepted. (p. xiv)”
 Preparing the materials before the class begins is one of the things that need to be done
by the teachers and it also represents the meaning of pedagogical competence as stated by the
government. From that situation, it shows that the teachers lose their professionalism in teaching.
However, interestingly the teacher tends to come on time on the flag ceremony and show a great
seriousness on it. As observed by Bjork (2005), this condition was pushed by certain factors such
as shortage of materials for teaching, students’ lack of interest in academic and inadequate
professional training to support the teachers’ performance. On the other side, the teachers also
pressed to prioritize non-academic objectives, such as flag ceremony and the other school rituals.
It seems that the teachers’ actions were often regarded as responses to major demands rather than
as independent choices.

Thus, that unprepared teacher remains me to my last school experience. I remember one
of my teachers in vocational high school, when she came to the class, she just greeted the
students and always asked the students to create five questions from the textbook and answer it
by themselves. She is an Indonesian history teacher but unfortunately she never taught us about it
or just simply told us one of the historic events that happened in Indonesia along her teaching in
one semester. Indeed, she told us her past history when she was in high school, her boyfriend,
and her life journey. Thus, I wonder why this kind of teacher exists in education, if I refer back to
the concept of profession itself, it seems that my teacher ought to have that professional
knowledge and skills. However, one of her stories leads me to a conclusion that possibly
becomes her reason to be unprofessional like that. She told us that she was graduated from the
top university in my province majoring economic. Basically, she did not have any education field
background, and she told me that actually she wanted to be a banker, but she was failed to
achieve it. In short, she forced by her family to be a teacher and decided to take “Akta Mengajar
(Akta IV),” a license for teaching obtained through short training for non-education graduates to
be able to teach, although she did not want to be a teacher. It seems that her educational
background possibly influenced her attitude in doing her profession as a teacher.

- Left a Classroom Unsupervised

Another real situation example of unprofessional teacher as stated in Bjork’s book when
the first day of the year activities in a junior high school:
 “The girls timidly announce that their teacher did not show up for class. None of the
staff members relaxing in the room display any signs of concern. (p. 85)”

Respond to this situation, one of the teachers refused to take over that class and none of
people on that room take initiative to come and teach on that unsupervised classroom. The
teachers’ response show a possible reason that group pressure were actually acting against the
instructors who tend to show their initiative. Furthermore, this kind of situation often happen
during Bjork’s observation on several school in East Java, he stated that most of the teachers
often left their classroom unsupervised without worrying any consequences.

- Side Job

“The total amount of time Pak Trisilo devoted to this weekend job exceeded his weekly
teaching hours at SMP A. Pak Trisolo tells me that he could not afford to turn down the
assignment—if he did not work part time for the travel agency, he would have trouble providing
for his family.” (p. 101)

As stated by Pak Trisilo, he became a part timer in travel agency as his additional job in
order to fulfill his family need. Although the salary gained by the teachers is equal with the civil
servant, but still it cannot fulfill his family needs. They tend to focus on the task that gives
additional income for them. As the result, teachers’ second job takes over their responsibility at
school to teach the students. Those teachers are often coming late to the school, leaving the
classroom, and also lack of preparation for the teaching. However, this condition was accepted
by the principle and even they still get their salary for their effort to be in their classroom.

Other Possible Reasons

As observed by Bjork (2005), Indonesian teachers tend to answer to the government

rather than the students, parents, or local school board. Since the independence, the role of
teacher has shaped to maintain the national cohesion. That’s why Indonesian government tends
to give reward to the teachers based on their loyalty and obedience toward the government. Thus,
the teacher expected to transmit the national curriculum rather than develop it to be more suitable
for the students by referring to their need in a classroom. Thus, in bureaucratic concept of
teaching, teachers do not need to be highly knowledgeable and skilled about learning theory and
pedagogy competence, child development, curriculum, and assessment[ CITATION Ham \l
1033 ]. It is because the teachers do not involve in taking major decision. The administrator and
specialist have set the curriculum and the teachers only implement it for them. Furthermore, the
inspection of teachers’ work also measured based on whether they have implement the
curriculum and procedures of the district.

Besides that, another reason on why teachers lose their professionalism is possibly
affected by several factors which are lack of content mastery, mismatch between the teachers’
subject area studied and what they had to teach, lack of effectiveness and authority in front of the
students, low motivation and dedication to be an educator, lack of emotional maturity,
independent of thought, and personality of being educator, and low intellectual level that
possibly affected by the teachers’ educational background (Sudarminta, 2000).

Meanwhile, a research by Misbahudin (2013) found the other factors that inhibit the
teachers to develop their professionalism, which are the lack of teachers’ awareness in
developing their professionalism continuously, teachers felt already had enough sufficient
capacity so they are neglecting the training, less benefit for the development of competences
because the participants have irrelevant basic skills, and lack of attention from the local
government to the activities of Teacher-Subject Forum or MGPM.

How to improve teachers’ professionalism?

The reason for shaping teachers’ professionalism is that it will increase the probability
that the students will be well educated and can decrease the recent problems about students such
as pregnant, dropout, and school vandalism (Hammond, n.d.). As the result, the government has
set the regulation in order to give a clear description on how the teacher should be. Furthermore,
in order to improve the teachers’ professionalism, by 2015 the government mandates all teachers
to have a certification and each year over 2000 teachers are certified[ CITATION Wor15 \l
1033 ] Certification is based on the teachers’ achievement in teaching subject as well as their
knowledge of child development and education. Besides that, the skills and expertise in the
classroom delivery and effectiveness also part of the certification. In deciding certification, some
authorities consider the academic qualifications provided by the university to the graduated
teachers. Thus, the certification award is based on the balance between academic excellence and
teaching expertise.

However, this certification program has not fully given significant impact on students’
performance in the classroom. One of the reasons of that failure is it explicitly rewards the
bachelor degree, while bachelor degree is a weak marker for quality. It shows that formal
academic qualifications are not mainly strong predictor of teachers’ quality. Besides that, finding
show that the current teachers’ certification program in Indonesia is lack of incentive for teachers
to raise their performance in the classroom. Indeed, the certification allowance provides the
financial incentive for the teachers to obtain bachelor’s degree which is not necessarily proof of
being a good teacher.

Besides focusing on the teachers’ degree, this certification also associated with
certification allowance which gives the teacher a significant salary raise. This was taken in order
to motivate the certified teachers to prepare for their classroom and forget their side job and
hopefully it can improve the quality of teaching aid and students learning outcome. However,
giving an increment salary to the teachers does not make the teachers perform better in the
classroom (De Ree, Muralidharan, Pradhan, & Rogers, forthcoming). Although it does not give
any changes in teachers’ performance but it is possibly an effective way to reduce the second job
of teachers.

Thus, come up with my point of view, teachers’ certification is not an effective way to
improve the teachers’ professionalism or quality. It is because from what I had experienced in my
previous school experience, one of the teachers was preparing for her certification. She prepared
all the documents, accomplishments, and the other requirements. However, during the process of
her certification, she left her duty as a teacher in a classroom. She often left the class, pushed the
students to take the daily test continuously but she rarely teaches the students, those are for her
sake of certification. Besides that, teachers’ certification also requires teacher subjects assessed
by the head of department of their teachers’ teaching skill. In this condition, some of the assessed
teachers act unusual as her behavior, they prepared the teaching aid, made an engaging learning
process, and even showed her enthusiasm on the students. However, after all is done, they turned
into themselves, as usual. From that condition, it shows that teachers’ certification is not an
effective way to improve the teachers’ professionalism. It can be seen from the process itself
already showed that teachers take a certification only for their status contrast with the aim of
government in proposing that way.

Thus, as I look at the teachers’ cause of losing their professionalism then I propose three
solutions in order to help the teachers improve their professionalism. First, appreciate teachers’
effort to encourage the teacher to do better things. This kind of appreciation can be form of
support from the colleagues, principal and other school administrators to motivate the teachers in
developing their performance as a teacher. Motivation is important in teachers learning, attract,
and sustain their involvement in high dose (Boyd et al, 2006).

Second, involve the teachers in making major decision. As explained above that most of
the major decisions are taken by the government, administrator, or expertise while the teacher
only as the implementer of those decisions. However, the role of teachers in taking major
decision related to students and learning process is important because they know the real
condition of the students. Although it is less possible for teacher to take part in designing the
national curriculum, the teachers can take part on taking major decision at school such as
organizing the school and choosing the materials for the learning process. As stated by Day,
Flores, and Viana (2007), teachers are willing to actively participate in making school decision.
Hopefully, by involving the teachers in making major decision even only at the school, it could
raise their sense in teaching because they feel that they are the one that take part to choose
certain decision that can be implemented in the classroom.

After all, give the teachers’ autonomy in the classroom. It means that the teachers are
allowed to be creative in modifying their learning process in the classroom. Teachers can use
their teaching strategies to teach the students, develop their teaching materials, and decide the
course objective for their students. Each teacher has its own autonomy in teaching, in this case,
the school need to support those diversities throughout the teachers still refer to the national
curriculum as their guidance.

Hopefully, by doing all those three solutions can help the teachers in improving the
teachers’ professionalism in teaching the students. As the result, Indonesian students will be more
educated as expected by the government. Perhaps, forcing a teacher to be professional is not an
easy way and that is why the government always improving the policy in order to fit with the real
condition of the education in Indonesia.
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